Don’t accept unconstitutional demands: Ministers to Centre

After holding their silence for days, two senior ministers from the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party – Narayan Rane and Chhagan Bhujbal - on Tuesday commented on the Jan Lokpal Bill imbroglio, saying that no individual is above the Constitution and that the Centre must not concede to unconstitutional demands.

State industries minister Narayan Rane from the Congress said nobody should think that he or she is bigger than Mahatma Gandhi or above the Indian Constitution. He said he shared his party’s view that corruption should end. Everyone has the right to protest and demand the new Act, Rane said, “But in the process, the parliamentary methods should be respected in all aspects…”

Public works department minister Chhagan Bhujbal from the NCP said: “Corruption must go. There can be amendments to the existing rules but there should not anything unconstitutional,” he said.

Both Rane, an ex-chief minister, and Bhujbal, an ex-deputy chief minister, have in the past had to deal with Anna Hazare during his several state-level agitations.